Insomnia and Insanity
8 Comments Published by Cat January 30th, 2009 in Cool, Geeky Things, Personal Stuff, Posts I Consider Good, w00t, WTFAren’t you happy? I’m starting to blog again!
Celebrations aside, I’ve got some stuff on the brain I feel like blogging about. I’m sure none of you are too interested, but I enjoy writing, so bear with me.
You may or may not know that throughout my life I’ve been a mild insomniac. Ever since I was a baby, I’ve never slept “normally”. I’m not trying to fetch attention, and I’m certainly not whining/bragging. It’s not too big of a problem. It’s not something I’m proud of. It’s just how it is.
Why blog about my sleeping habits, you ask? Because maybe I can get some feedback. I’m not looking for help, just some feedback.
I don’t have trouble staying asleep. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, yes, but I can usually get back to sleep easily. My problem is getting to sleep in the first place. I’ve since discovered my reason why – I think too much!
To me, a surefire method of falling asleep is a simple one: stop thinking. I believe that’s how most people fall asleep. They lose control of their thoughts, which eventually become dreamlike and take over their consciousness. I suppose for most people, it’s simple enough. For me, however, it’s near impossible. I’ve spent many nights laying in bed, awake as can be, for hours with no success. I think the longest I’ve gone trying to sleep unsuccessfully is 5 hours, but I may be mistaken.
So, my problem is that I can’t stop voluntary thought, that I find it incredibly hard to “let go” of your mind and let it guide itself. What can make me stop thinking? Well, an obvious answer is drugs. I’ve tried a variety of substances to help me sleep, but I’ll only be talking about one today.
I’ve had some of the most success with lorazepam, or Ativan, a schedule IV (prescription only, sorry) benzodiazepine. I will not disclose my source, so do not ask me.
What’s a benzodiazepine, you ask? “I am too lazy to click your provided link!” you say? Benzodiazepines, or “benzos”, work on GABA receptors (think ethyl alcohol/booze), in this case effectively depressing the central nervous system. I suppose that, in essence, lorazepam can get one “drunk”. The feeling is similar. Benzos are commonly prescribed for anxiety and sedation. Surely you’ve heard of Ambien (Zolpidem) – that’s a benzo. I’m hoping by now that you’ve got the gist of what these drugs are used for by now.
My experiences with lorazepam are limited, but successful. (Please take note that I have never taken lorazepam for recreation. It is not a drug one could get “high” from.) It puts me to sleep within a couple of hours, so I take it at least an hour before I plan on sleeping. However, while it works very well, I experience some strange side effects, and the purpose of me going on about this drug is because I want to know if anybody else has similar feelings with this drug, or a similar benzo.
About two hours after taking it, I get what I can only describe as a “flow” of words. Some sort of creative sector in my brain is unlocked, a barrier is broken somewhere, because with that drug I find that writing becomes extremely easy. It’s almost as if the drug improves my writing skill. It’s incredibly weird, I have googled to no avail, and have found nothing of the sort. In fact, I’ve found that the drug may cause “trouble with language”! A paradoxical effect, maybe? As difficult as it becomes to physically function properly, as slowed as my thoughts become (thus being able to sleep), why in the world would it make me write well? I should clarify that it doesn’t “stop” my thoughts, but instead it makes it easier for me to stop them. It gives me a temporary “off” switch.
Another interesting effect (but I’ve heard a few more accounts of it) is that it makes me hallucinate. Not strongly, and I don’t see things that aren’t there. Instead, things that are already there are distorted. My wallpaper will “reach out” to me, particles will “swim” around. They aren’t bad hallucinations. There are no feelings of terror. They’re amusing, if anything. Would this be another paradoxical effect?
I think my favorite thing about lorazepam is that in the morning, I feel great. It doesn’t make me feel like shit in the morning (as doxylamine does), and it doesn’t give me disturbing dreams (see melatonin). I do understand that benzos are addictive, but my supply (and consequently, experience) is very limited, so I don’t think that will be a problem.
So, any readers here have anything to share? As far as the “insanity” goes in my post title, there’s no real purpose. I suppose it just fits. 
tl;dr version: LOLS SLEEPY DRUGZ MAEKS ME WRIET GUD AND SEE THANGS!!!
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One thing I’d like to say about “It is not a drug one could get “high” from.” is that yes, it is possible to get a “high” off of lorazepam. It might not make you feel that way, or maybe we have different definitions of “high”, but yes, it is possible.
I have a hard time getting to sleep quite often. It doesn’t take me five hours to get there, but more often one or two. I’ve steered away from taking anything to aid my sleep ’cause I tend to get weird reactions to even over-the-counter meds. Benadryl gives me terrifying hallucinations…and Advil gives me severe (like hour long) nose bleeds. So, yeah I tend to shy away from meds of all forms, except Tylenol which I probably take far too much of.
Those are weird reactions though…but I suppose if they’re not physically harming you then there isn’t any real harm being done. You sleep better! Isn’t that the point?
You probably don’t care, and since your insomnia is greater than mine these tips probably won’t help, but I take two Tylenol before bed every night ’cause one of the reasons (among thinking too much before I sleep) I don’t sleep is due to pain, also I leave my MP3player on all night that way I focus less on my thoughts and more on drifting of the the music.
Ack. Long comment…sorry.
I fall asleep easily if I don’t think about it..
Before I fall asleep, I find myself thinking of the past.. a movie of my life, try examining past decisions/events, hell.. change a few things.
Note; this doesn’t always work…. sometimes you’ll start thinking about past loves/crushes, then sex.. and wake up horny.. but clearly I’m off topic.
If you were a guy, the recommendation is easy.. masturbate.. that makes us very sleep, and typically our minds won’t go back there for a few hours.. and by then, we’ll be asleep.
Take care cat, glad you’re blogging again.
@Amy: Yeah, I’ve tried tylenol. Not for pain, but it was out of desperation, a few years ago… an insomniac night, and I was trying everything I could get my hands on just to get to sleep. I ended up taking six! I’m glad my liver survived through that, although livers can metabolize an insane amount of APAP (tylenol) before going into toxic shock.
It’s understandable that Benadryl would give you hallucinations, it’s psychoactive at moderate to high doses. It’s diphenhydramine! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphenhydramine
Also, don’t worry about the long comment. I actually enjoy longer comments, I love hearing what my lovely readers have to say.
@unixfan: As far as masturbation goes, for me, it has about a 50-50 chance of putting me to sleep. If I’m lucky I’ll fall asleep during the act!
If that was TMI for anyone, oops.
Hey Cat, for me the situation is not as bad as for you (I normally need about 1-3 hours).
What I found out is a great help is classical music, especially Sibelius choral works (sounds strange I know, but that’s the way things are^^)
Hey Cat, It’s Chris again (site backwards), The guy we had a quick chat & play with winsock.
Just a word of caution about benzo’s as this is a field I have some experience in; Do your research and don’t trust dr’s. They prescribe the things like smarties and the addiction warnings aren’t nearly strong enough – yes you get a positive in the short term, but long term it’s _sersiouly_ fucking you up, and I can’t stress this enough. I was prescribed them as an antidepressant and kept slightly upping dosages & steadying for five years and now I don’t think i’ll be able to withdraw. I’ve tried but my body has rejected it, I lost all feeling down the left side and now I can’t taste anything properly. What’s worse is my heart is skipping beats leaving me breathless. I’ve done my research and joined withdrawel forums and this is an extremely common trend; quite a few people have even died, they’re partners messaging on the forum. It’s not something to be taken lightly. Do your research before accepting the easy option from dr’s, which gives you the most short-term satisfaction. Also health services are in the process of being updated by these issues, in britain they’re only beginning to understand the long-term issues.
Take care,
Chris
hey sweet cat. don’t u know u r an indigo child. u got a mission here. pills clear ur mind, killing the child within ur soul. just stay calm. u don’t need to sleep, it’s not so important. go on writing
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